Which 4K TV is right for me?

Binge-watch Netflix and usher in the 2017/18 football season in style with our guide to the best 4K TVs from Samsung, LG and Sony…

If you’re at the stage of comparing different TV brands, you may already know how a 4K TV improves on your old HD set. If not, this guide to the basics of 4K TV should help.

Now, let’s take a closer look at TVs from Samsung, Sony and LG…

Samsung

Samsung is the world’s biggest TV maker. Its QLED TVs combine 4K resolution with quantum dots ­– tiny crystals added to the TV screen. They take the added depth and detail of 4K and provide a much wider colour range – over one billion colours – and increased brightness.

Quantum dots get the best from HDR by enabling the TV to reach much brighter levels than any other television and creating a much wider colour range.

From fireworks to football pitches and star-filled skies to spectacular explosions, bright scenes will look like never before thanks to the brightness levels of Samsung QLED TVs.

The brighter your TV goes, colours can become washed out. But Samsung QLED TVs keep colours vibrant even when brightness is increased with 100% colour volume. Samsung also uses local dimming technology to further improve black colours on dark areas of your screen.

Why not try… QLED Q7F

LG

Premium LG TVs combine 4K resolution with OLED screen technology. An OLED screen doesn’t need a backlight. It forgoes the backlight because its pixels can create their own light – shutting each one off for total blackness when needed.

This means you can have absolute black and white pixels side by side. They create the deepest, inkiest blacks around – a huge indicator of TV picture quality. Nasa says they’re great for replicating the ‘real experience of being in space’.

With these deep blacks, LG OLED TVs get the best from HDR. Expect to see richly detailed shadowy scenes – experience movies as the director intended.

Why not try… LG 65C7V

Sony

Sony has designed some clever technology to deliver the best 4K picture quality and get the best from HDR. LED TVs use a backlight to create your picture. TV makers use local dimming to shut off sections of the backlight to create darkness in parts of the screen.

Sony’s new improved local dimming technology, called Slim Backlight Drive+, divides the screen into lots of separate areas where the backlight can be controlled separately. This gives you much greater contrast between dark and bright areas of the screen. This helps Sony TVs get the best from HDR – enabling the screen to reach incredible levels of brightness also.